Peace and serenity through forgiveness; Kamal Dhillon survived years of abuse and now shares message of hope

Kamal Dhillon, pictured with her dog P.J., is the recipient of the Courage to Come Back Award in the social-adversity category. Dhillon was beaten by her husband for several years before fleeing in the middle of the night with her children. She now offers talks about domestic violence and counsels battered women.Nick Procaylo
/ Province

Kamal Dhillon, pictured with her dog P.J., is the recipient of the Courage to Come Back Award in the social-adversity category. Dhillon was beaten by her husband for several years before fleeing in the middle of the night with her children. She now offers talks about domestic violence and counsels battered women.Nick Procaylo
/ Province

Kamal Dhillon's home in a Surrey subdivision is neat, orderly and comfortably decorated, complete with an attention-seeking golden retriever named P.J., framed photos of a smiling family that includes two young grandchildren and a porch swing and tree in full pink blossom out front.

It's been a long journey to quiet suburbia for Dhillon, the 2012 recipient of the Courage to Come Back Award in the social-adversity category.

It includes horrific abuse at the hands of her husband and ends with peace and serenity and a message of hope for others, an ending she said was possible for her by finally forgiving her abuser.

She was 18 when she entered into an arranged marriage that's customary in her Sikh-Hindu culture.

"Initially it started as a fairy tale in my mind," she said.

She was soon instructed by her new mother-in-law to worship her husband as a god, even though Dhillon soon realized he drank excessively.

"Within weeks of the marriage, he had hit me so hard, he broke my nose," she said. That was the start of years of "mental, verbal, physical" abuse, including rape, torture and a forced stay in a mental hospital.

Dhillon said the abuse included an attempt at electrocuting her with an arc welder, forcing her to drink poison, dousing her with kerosene and almost daily beatings that were so severe that she now lives with an artificial jaw.

"He told me if I left and went to my parents, he would come there and shoot each one of them and then shoot me," she said.

She never called police, but her husband was charged with assault and uttering death threats after someone witnessed a beating in a parking lot. To avoid trial, he moved her and their two young children abroad. The abuse continued, even in his parents' house.

They had another two children and one dark night, he drove them all to a deserted part of the waterfront, dragging her to the pier and beating her as she clung on to the railing. She said she would have been drowned if it weren't for a passerby.

"I believe now that person was a Godsend," she said.

Dhillon eventually returned to Vancouver, but he followed. She finally left him by fleeing in the middle of the night with her children.

"In the first year, we were running from shelter to shelter," said Dhillon.

The couple divorced and her husband died, his body found in the ocean near the spot he'd taken her earlier. His jaw was broken, but there wasn't an investigation. He was 39.

Dhillon gives talks and workshops about domestic violence to police and others involved with battered women. She also counsels battered women, encouraging them to act.

"If you stay there [in an abusive situation], you're enabling the abuser, you're empowering the abuser. The abuser gets the message that you either like the abuse or you deserve it," she said. "You're sucked into that victim mentality and he starts to believe he's the victor."

Dhillon said she has found peace and serenity through forgiveness, which she has written about in her book, Black and Blue Sari.

"Through forgiveness, I no longer walk around in hatred with my head down as a victim," she said. "I learned once I forgave him, I didn't have to go and embrace him."

Dhillon also says her painful journey was part of a plan for her to help others. "When I showed some women the scars for my artificial jaw, they said, 'What's holding us back?'"

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